Reader, I Married Him review – stories inspired by Jane Eyre

This anthology, edited by Tracy Chevalier, will enrich and complicate any future reading of Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece

Right from its dedication – “For Charlotte, of course” – affection and intimacy pervade this collection of 21 short stories, all by women, inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s most famous line. (All apart from Susan Hill, who contrarily reveals in her contributor’s note that she has not read Jane Eyre.) For the editor, Tracy Chevalier, Jane’s declaration is the defiant cry of the underdog, thrilling because it is so far from the more passive constructions we might expect; it is not “Reader, he married me”, or even “Reader, we married”. In Chevalier’s own story, “Dorset Gap”, Jenn spurns Ed by pointedly summarising Jane Eyre as a novel about “a governess full of inner strength who marries a completely inappropriate man”. Ed proves his inappropriateness by confusing the novel with Wuthering Heights, and loses more ground by admitting that he always thought the Kate Bush song was called “Waterproof Eyes”. But he finally breaks the ice by misquoting the crucial line as “Reader, she married me” – and she laughs so hard that we wonder if one day she will.

Related: The secret history of Jane Eyre: Charlotte Brontë's private fantasy stories

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